Social media is awash with pictures of get-togethers, and of who is meeting whom. Gen X and Gen Y are in a state of shock. Even the baby-boomers have joined the race. Having woken up from a slumber they have come to realise they have been missing their friends and foes of their alma mater. To make up for lost time they have come up with a new game: it’s called ‘catch-up’. Those who were lucky to have attended school or college run amok amongst us trying to round up ex-classmates to be part of their game.
Many such catch-up games are passed on to the able hands of event managers. Yes, it helps try out the event management skills of their children who have just come out of college and do not know what to do with a degree in event management. Even if the event goes down the drain with a few blows traded here and there, it doesn’t matter. Showcase for talent? Of course, bring in your family members by all means. The son with a stamp collection and the daughter who beats the drum in the school band... applause and praise guaranteed by the eager alumni. Another management line – ‘Don’t hide your achievements’. What better place to brag than such a gathering where everyone is forced to sit, watch and listen without uttering a word and then rise up to applaud whether they like it or not. If you are lucky to have studied with someone who later became a celebrity, then dropping names is another name of the game.
In order not to appear to be hardcore narcissists, it is customary to attribute 1 per cent of their success to their alma mater, or if some old teachers are present at such a gathering, to those teachers — whose classes they might never have attended.
The venue for such get-togethers range from the old college premises to some faraway, expensive retreat. Any overflow is usually accommodated by such organisers in some restaurant or bar near the alma mater for that local touch and whiff. What better way to unwind?
The success or failure of an event is judged by the numbers present. Those less successful organisers who have not been able to round up their alumni effectively may invite those from other batches who have not been invited by their own batches or who have decided to boycott their own batches’ gathering for any number of reasons. Fellow batchmates are encouraged to bring their spouses, and children too.
One such gathering of which I was a part, ended up with a slugfest between two erstwhile college political rivals. It started with a self-introduction by one, which soon meandered into an old incident concerning the college union election. Yawns or sighs from the tired audience gave way to surprise when suddenly the rival materialised on the stage and tried to outdo the first one in volume, even without the microphone! The hotel bouncers had to be deployed to separate them before they could throw punches at each other. Soon enough, pockets formed and gathered around the bonfire outside spitting venom at each other. Inebriation often leads to disastrous situations involving such pockets of people.
No such meeting is complete without those grey-haired know-all types who circulate, silent as wraiths, hands clasped behind, nodding while frowning within at the ignorant imbeciles around. I have seen several photographs of such get-togethers of my college circulating in the social media but with several outsiders propped up, and some with proxies by way of brothers, sisters, cousins!
What the motive behind such get-togethers is and what drives people to spend their time organising personal events of this kind during working hours defies logic. Once all is done and dusted they croon over picture after picture of the same group of people posted on social media, lamenting those ‘lost years’, trying to relive and recreate the ‘life of those times’ — much to the chagrin of their bored families. It appears these people are caged in their past and do not want to come out even when the door is wide open.
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